


if not now, then when

by Spoofymcgee



Series: AU-gust 2020 [6]
Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Ahsoka Tano Needs a Hug, Ahsoka Tano is a Little Shit, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - Hospital, Anakin Skywalker Has Issues, Anakin Skywalker Needs a Hug, But also, Good Dooku (Star Wars), Hospitals, Human Disaster Anakin Skywalker, Minor Barriss Offee/Ahsoka Tano, Pudding, a lot of people do, and that's okay, and we can deal with them, he cares about them, mostly - Freeform, we do not acknowledge canon in this house, y'know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:46:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26155195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spoofymcgee/pseuds/Spoofymcgee
Summary: the good guys always get lucky. they always make it through, just barely unharmed. except when they don't.barriss is a healer. it's what she does, what she's always wanted to do. she's never met a jedi before, except her supervisor, who's quit the order.anakin is not sure about this. not at all. but if it can save his brothers and maybe, just maybe, end this war, he finds that he doesn't care.Ahsoka just wants to finish healing, get her mood lights, and convince master Obi-Wan to give her her lightsabers back so she can start training for the front.
Relationships: Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano, Barriss Offee & Ahsoka Tano, CT-21-0408 | Echo & Ahsoka Tano, CT-27-5555 | Fives | ARC-5555 & Ahsoka Tano, CT-7567 | Rex & Ahsoka Tano, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Ahsoka Tano, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano
Series: AU-gust 2020 [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1861135
Comments: 2
Kudos: 38





	if not now, then when

**Author's Note:**

> day 6: hospital au

“...Really not that bad…”  
“Of course it is! My chest is made of durasteel, Master Saa!”  
Barriss pauses outside of the room, hesitating. She knocks, and someone calls grumpily from inside.  
“Come in!” Barriss opens the door and leans around the edge, giving the girl in the bed a little wave.  
“I can come back in a bit if this is a bad time?” she asks awkwardly.  
“No, now’s fine.” says the other Jedi. “I’ll leave you be padawan. Comm me if you need anything?”  
“Yes, of course master.” the Togruta replies, any trace of frustration gone from her tone. “Thank you.”  
The Neti-and Barriss is now fairly sure she is a Neti, despite their rarity-smiles, and squeezes the patient’s hand gently before leaving.  
“How can I help you?” the girl-Barriss checks her clipboard quickly-Ahsoka, asks. She’s hooked up to several machines, ones Barriss probably knows the names of, but her shift ended fifteen minutes ago, and she’s here as a favor to her supervisor rather than in any official capacity, so she doesn’t need to.  
“Um, hi. I think maybe it’s more of a question of how I can help you.” she answers. Moving a bit closer. “I’m Barriss. Dr. Unduli asked me to come and answer whatever questions you have.”  
Ahsoka’s brows furrow, and Barriss might, maybe, definitely be internally screeching at how cute she is.  
“Didn’t realize that was part of your job.” she says. Barriss decides to take a risk.  
“Actually, I’m off the clock. My boss called in a favor, and I figured, why not.”  
She discreetly assesses the readouts of a couple of the machines.  
“Oh,” Ahsoka looks slightly baffled. “Do you wanna… take off your coat or something.”  
“Yes,” Barriss replies, shrugging it off. “Technically I’m supposed to keep it on at all times outside the bunks, but you try wearing one of these for fourteen hours straight.”  
“You work fourteen hour shifts?!”  
“Just because we’re not on the front lines doesn’t mean we have less work,” she answers, folding her jacket over her arm. “We’ve got forty-seven thousand injured troopers, nine hundred Jedi and twice that many civilian enlistees.”  
“I wasn’t trying to imply-” Ahsoka protests.  
“I know,” Barriss interrupts. “Sorry. I’m supposed to be here to help you.”  
“No, I mean-” she bites off looking down. “I don’t-if you could maybe explain a bit about the pulmonodes? If it’s not too much trouble.”  
“Of course,” Barriss agrees. “But first-” she sits in the chair next to Ahsoka’s bed, and reaches for her hand. The Togruta nods, if confusedly, and then inhales sharply as her pain disappears.  
“You’re Force-sensitive.” she says. Barriss shrugs.  
“That’s what Dr. Unduli tells me. She’s part of the Medical Corps.”  
“How are you doing that?”  
“I’m interfering with your nervous system’s transmission of pain signals. It’s sort of like one of your Force suggestions, I guess.” Ahsoka looks adorably befuddled, and Barriss grins. “So about your pulmonodes…”

“Are you looking for someone?” Barriss addresses the group of men standing in the hall. They’re muttering between themselves, and several are wearing confused expressions atop their off-duty blacks. She’s off shift, probably going to crash in an hour after the last cup of caf wears off, and on her way to Ahsoka’s room again.  
They’d finally scheduled the surgery for a more fitted set of pulmonodes that would hopefully last her through the war. It would deal with the pain problem, so they could take her off the symoxin.  
“Um, yes, ma’am,” one of them answers, fidgeting with the edge of his long braid. “A Jedi padawan called Ahsoka Tano?”  
“Hevy can’t remember whether it’s room twenty seven or seventy two, and we don’t want to bother anyone.”  
“I said I was sorry, didn’t I?” the regulation flat-top replies.  
“Oh, I’m on my way to her room right now,” Barriss says before the fighting can get any worse. “I’ll take you. This way.” 

They get to Ahsoka’s door and hesitate, murmuring low enough that Barriss can’t make out what they’re saying. Most of them hand back, pushing the clone with the five tattoo and goatee forward. He looks like he hasn’t slept in a week, and Barriss is slightly concerned. He protests quietly, but eventually surrenders and allows himself to be pushed at the door.  
Barriss strides in after him, just in time to see Ahsoka’s shocked expression as the clone bursts into tears.  
“Fives?” she asks, sitting up. The wires attached to her chest pull taunt, and her IV trails, brushing the floor.  
“Kriff you, commander.” Fives says wetly, and carefully hugs Ahsoka when she beckons him closer. She squeezes him tightly back, prompting a fresh wave of tears. The corner of Barriss’ mouth quirks up, and she points past her shoulder when Ahsoka looks over.  
She nods, and Barriss leaves. 

It’s nearly twenty hundred hours-the end of visiting time-that Echo picks to say it. He sits down in one of the rickety plast chairs next to her bed. Anakin’s in the corner of her small room, gesturing wildly as he explains something to Rex, who’s nodding along and doing his best to look like he understands.  
“Echo.” she says, tone maybe a bit more dangerous than is probably warranted.  
“Commander,” he replies. “I want to talk about the stunt you pulled.”  
“Stunt?” she asks, and maybe the warning was called for. The stunt that saved Fives’ life? The stunt that landed her in this hospital bed? The stunt that cost her her lungs and heart? That stunt?  
“Look, sir,” he looks up from his hands and meets her gaze unflinchingly. “None of us could bear it if you-if you died to save us. There are-it’s our job. That’s what we’re here for. We’re disposable. You’re not.” There’s silence.  
“No it’s not.” she says, and her voice blazes with the fire stars. “It’s not. That’s not what you’re here for. I won’t let it be.”  
“What, then?!” Echo shouts, standing. “You just tell all of us that we’re wrong? That we have no purpose?”  
“No,” she replies. “I tell you that your purpose is whatever you want it to be.” she pauses. “I tell you that it’s a choice you have to make for yourself. And no one can ever make it for you.” Again, quiet.  
“Why, sir?” Cutup finally manages to choke out. Ahsoka grins, sharp and threataning.  
“Because you’re mine,” she says, tilting her head. “And I’m yours. Just like you won’t let me, I won’t let you.” Rex inhales sharply. She looks to Anakin, and he nods once, seriously.  
“Ner vode.” Rex says, soft and piercing. “Both of you.” Ahsoka smiles again, and this time a single tear slides down to drop on her bed.  
“Vor’e.” she says, and means it.

“Have you finally taken my advice and decided to leave your padawan behind?” Dooku asks, parrying another hit.  
“No,” Anakin answers, dodging a droid’s stray blaster bolt and diving in for another strike. “One of your clankers fired a missile at my troopers and hit her. She’s at a medcenter.” The count misses a step, giving Anakin an opening.  
“What?” he brings his ‘saber up to deflect the blow, and slashes forward.  
“I don’t know if you know this, count, but it’s rather hard to live without important internal organs such as your heart and lungs.” The battle’s winding down around them, droids pulling back as the 501st and 327th advance.  
“Her-”  
“Yes,” Anakin cuts him off leaping over a swing and jumping forward to strike. “Why do you even care?”  
“Why shouldn’t I?” Dooku asks. He’s slowing, maybe unconsciously, and Anakin should probably take advantage of that fact, but he’s genuinely curious. Since the beginning of the war, the count’s been asking after Obi-Wan, scolding the redhead about not sleeping enough, and getting annoyed at both of them for bringing Ahsoka into battle. Not that he seems to be averse to fighting either of them should the opportunity arise.  
“Uh, maybe because you’re our enemy?” Anakin suggests.  
“Who says?” he asks.  
“You cut off my arm!”  
“It was self-defence!” At Anakin’s unimpressed look, he shrugs and moves aside of another strike. “Just because we’re on opposite sides of a war doesn’t mean Kenobi isn’t my grand-padawan.”  
“Your what now?” he asks, mildly flabbergasted.  
“Grand-padawan? I assumed you were familiar with the concept, but perhaps I ask too much of your intelligence-”  
“No, I know what that is, but how?” Dooku gives him a strange look.  
“Qui-Gon Jinn was my former padawan. Did you not know this?”  
“No!” Anakin sweeps a blow forward twisting away from Dooku’s own strike.  
“Kenobi didn’t tell you?”  
“Obi-Wan doesn’t talk about him!” there’s maybe just a hint of desperation in his tone. “It’s-I stopped asking, because it hurts him to talk about it.”  
“But you want to know.” Dooku deduces, blocking another slash.  
“...Maybe.”  
“I can tell you,” he offers.  
“What will it cost me?” Anakin asks.  
“What do you think?”  
He considers for a moment.  
“Negotiations at some point next week. I’ll give you the location of Jedi General Pong Krell and inside information on how to get him, in exchange for the names of five of your inside agents in the Senate and tactical plans for Elzkar.”  
Dooku clips his lightsaber to his belt, leaping onto the wing of a low flying Sepratist ship. Dooku claps.  
“We’ll do lunch.” he announces, and then the fighter’s out of range.  
“General?” Rex asks, clambering down the side of the crumbling courtyard wall.  
“He got away.” Anakin answers.

There’s a sound very similar to caterwauling tookas coming from Padme’s apartment. It’s faint, of course, because she has good quality soundproof walls, but it still sounds far too much like screaming for his comfort. And then he realizes he can make out words, and slows from a fast walk to a stroll, and palms the door open with an unreasonably wide smile.  
“Ani, you’re home!” Padme says when he walks into the living room. She hugs him.  
“I am.” he agrees, and then: “I thought it was a stereotypical princess thing to have a good singing voice, angel.”  
She hits his arm, with unwarranted force, he thinks.  
“Well then it’s a good thing I was a queen, not a princess.” she says, and leans back into him. He holds her for a minute, and they watch the sun set against the skyline for a minute. Then he jolts, and says: “Kark.”  
“What is it?” she asks.  
“What does one wear to meet a planetary leader for lunch?”  
She stares at him for a moment.  
“Ani, what the kriff?”

“No.”  
“Wear it you-”  
“No! Grand Master, I already have to change my fighting style a lot, I am not going to wear that!”  
“Have armor, you should.”  
Barriss opens the door a crack. It’s not unusual to come around after her shift and find Ahsoka arguing with someone, but she doesn’t often sound this upset.  
“What part of half my torso is made of durasteel don’t you understand, master?” she asks, and picks up a metal flask of water someone had left and slams it against her side. It clangs, loudly. She pulls it away and shows it to Yoda. It’s molded to the shape of her side.  
Ahsoka’s really strong, something in Barriss’ head says.  
Shut up, she tells it.

“It’s good to see you recovering well, padawan.” Master Obi-Wan greets, and Ahsoka jumps out of her bed to meet him at the door. She wraps him in a big hug, and then Anakin after him, when he walks in the door. Both of them stiffen, then relax.  
“Hi masters!” she says, probably a bit too excited.  
"How are you, Snips?" Anakin asks seriously when she lets him go.  
She grants him an unimpressed look, punches him in the arm, and gets her pudding cup from the tray on her bed. She shows it to him.  
"It's choc day, and I want lights on my pulmonodes." she says. Anakin's eyes go wide, and his gaze fixates on the cup.  
"Ahsoka." Obi-Wan says in an admonishing tone.  
"Please, master?" Ahsoka pulls out the puppy eyes. Obi-Wan's spent ten years with Anakin though, and so he still hesitates.  
She's going to have to play that card, isn't she. "Barriss says it's important for my recovery to feel secure about my pulmonodes. If I can make them a little less standard model, they'll feel more mine." Both of them cave instantaneously, and Ahsoka immediately feels like a wet sock. They both feel guilty about not being able to protect her from that missile. She'll have to address that at some point. In the meantime, however-  
"Alright, but get permission from the healers, yes?" Obi-Wan says, and she cheers.  
"Thank you!"  
"Wait, so Snips, what color do you want them to glow?" Anakin asks, and they devolve into semantics.

"Where do you get all these stories about Master Jinn, Skyguy?" Ahsoka asks, and across the room in discussion with one of the healers, Obi-Wan stiffens.  
"Have you been bothering Master Giiett again?" he asks, waving to the Trandoshan and walking over to them.  
"No." Anakin says. The corners of his eyes tighten slightly, and his shoulders tense.  
"I won't be angry if you were." Obi-Wan replies, noticing it too. "Only disappointed."  
"I haven't talked to him." Anakin says, and he's not lying, but he very clearly doesn't want to tell them who he has talked to.  
"Anakin-" Obi-Wan says, warning.  
"I-I can't. Not yet," Anakin says, clenching a fist. "Soon, I promise. I just-I" he looks so incredibly regretful and bewildered, that they let it go. 

It's hours later, and Padme has arrived from a diplomatic mission she'd been on to a nearby planet. She's curled between Anakin and Obi-Wan, with the senator leaning into Anakin in a way that is decidedly more than friendly, and Ahsoka realizes she'll have to address that too, because clearly they still think they're fooling everyone.  
The war is slowly breaking all of them, but she realizes then that perhaps they don't have to wait until it's end to begin putting each other back together.  
Then she shoots bolt upright, scaring everyone.  
"Heating coils!" she says, and Obi-Wan sighs tiredly.

It's months later and the heating system on the Resolute is broken, so Anakin has a cold. He's been miserable for the past week.  
All he can think now is how much that places in comparison to the utter horror he feels now.  
He glares at his hands. They won't stop shaking.  
"Anakin?" Obi-Wan asks, coming around the corner. Anakin had lost track of time while visiting Ahsoka, due for a call with Dooku.  
He'd hid in a supply closet, and then connected too early, before the count had been finished with his last meeting. "Are you all right?"  
Anakin takes a deep breath.  
"Not really, master." he says, voice comparatively calm and steady when contrasted with the tears dripping down his face and how he can't stop kriffing shaking.  
And Obi-Wan is starting to notice now, seeing the dark spots on the collar of his undershirt where he hadn't wiped the tears away before they fell, the puffiness of his eyes. His gaze falls to the dropped comm unit on the cold floor.  
"What's wrong?" he asks, and damn it all, Anakin wants to tell him, even if Obi-Wan will kill him for it, will drag him in front of the Council, the Senate, because Anakin is a traitor.  
Wants to tell him, even though Obi-Wan will hate him forever, because the Chancellor is the Sith Lord, the one they've been searching for.  
...Maybe wants to tell him because of those things. Because if Anakin was blind enough not to realize that one of his closest friends is the embodiment of pure evil, doesn't he deserve it?  
So he does.  
"I know who the Sith Lord is."  
His old master's jaw drops.  
"How?!" he asks.  
"I'll tell you," Anakin replies. "Just-hear me out before you arrest me, okay?"  
"Anakin-" it's a tone he's heard a million times before, one he'll probably never hear again. He smiles through the tears.  
"I love you, master. Just so you know," he takes a deep breath. "I had it all planned out. I did my research, stayed up hours past when I should have. It was only the people like Krell, casualty rates far higher than they should have been relevant to the situation. I checked, and double checked, and asked opinions. Obsolete information for Separatist war secrets; I'm sure he knew, but didn't mind taking out war heroes like Krell from our side; the ones borne high on the backs of those they'd murdered. Especially not ones calling themselves Jedi."  
"Anakin-" he's almost frantic now, but Anakin plows on.  
"It was selfish, really. He asked about Ahsoka, spouted some banthashit about being concerned, and how he's your grandmaster, even if he is a Sith," Obi-Wan inhales sharply. "Said he had stories, if I wanted them; about Master Qui-Gon. I asked what it would cost."  
"Anakin, you didn't-"  
"What? No, of course not. I bargained for the names of spies in the Senate and tactical plans," he finally looks up from his hands. "Dooku." he finishes and waits for judgement.

"Anakin, you idiot," Obi-Wan says vehemently, instead of shouting at him like he should, instead of pulling out his lightsaber and putting it through Anakin's heart. "Why didn't you tell me?"  
"I-what?" he's all of the confused.  
"I could have helped you! What were you thinking, negotiating with a Sith Lord on your own?! Oh, wait, obviously enough you weren't. I assume you met up, face to face?" At Anakin's mute nod, Obi-Wan introduces his palm to his face. "Why in the name of Yoda's droopy left ear didn't you bring backup?"  
Obi-Wan has to berate him for another ten minutes before it sinks in.  
"Why don't you hate me?" Anakin asks, brokenly. Obi-Wan stares at him for a second, then tackles him in a hug.  
"You utter dumbass," he mutters, and he's crying, too. "Why the kriff d'you think I would hate you for trying to save lives?"  
It takes a moment, but then Anakin hugs him back.  
He stares at an empty, white spot on wall, and makes a resolution.

The next part he only remembers in flashes.

The pad beeping as he keyed in the code he'd memorized years ago.

The violent glow of a Coruscant skyline at sunset, framed by the blood-red walls.

"You're under arrest, Darth." he'd said, holding out the magnacuffs with one hand. The other had been gripping his lightsaber. He hadn't expected it to go smoothly. He'd been right.

The snap-hiss, and the glow of red plasma. 

The look of surprise on his face when he'd found a 'saber in his gut.  
How he'd slid off, crumpled to the floor. 

Started to glow a threatening crimson.

"I knew you were, at best, a functional moron, but I honestly didn't believe you had the capacity to be this utterly idiotic." someone says from above him, and he blinks, because he knows that voice, and that voice should not be here.  
Then he promptly forgets about all that because pain.  
"Unfortunately, I can't say I disagree." And that tone is what cajoles him to fight through the pain, open his eyes and sit up, because why in the entire kark is Obi-Wan talking to Dooku?  
"You two aren't giving him enough credit," someone else says by his bedside, taking his hand in one much softer, save for calluses from blaster practice. "Ani had a great many talents."  
"Such as?" a shadow asks from behind the count, and Anakin shuts his eyes, because he is either hallucinating and has been for several months at least, or actually dead, along with several people he cares about and a few he doesn't.  
"Nubian fashion." Padme replies, proudly.  
There's a snicker from his left, one he knows well.  
"Undoing Nubian fashion." Ahsoka says.  
"Shut up, Snips." Anakin says, feeling  
blood heat his face. She's close; he can feel a lekku tickling his wrist and the warmth of the extra strength heating system she'd picked. He wasn't the only one who got cold in space.  
"Ah, so you are awake," Dooku says. "Good. Now you can tell.us exactly what was going through your head when you decided to singlehandedly arrest the Sith Master."  
He grumbles a bit, still not opening his eyes.  
"Don't remember."  
Padme sighs next to him.  
"Ani, if you do that again, I'll tell Obi-Wan about the incident with the Mrlissi senator, your lightsaber and the talon rings." Anakin pales.  
Rex, standing quietly against the wall, looks interested. He flashes Anakin a quick succession of battlesigns meaning they're going to talk, and soon, but not quite yet.  
"I won't, I promise!" he then realizes that he's still holding Padme's hand. His gaze flickers down to it, then up to meet Obi-Wan's.  
"I'm still miffed that you didn't invite me to the wedding," the older Jedi says, and Anakin relaxes. He's known Obi-Wan for years; jokes mean he's forgiven. It also means that he owes Obi-Wan his secret stash of pudding cups and a new exotic tea, but-  
Well. That's better than a jail cell. Anakin grins.  
"One question, though?" he says, and points to Ventress. "Why is she here?"

**Author's Note:**

> hope you enjoyed this monstrosity. 
> 
> in my defense, it was supposed to be a fluffy recovery fic, and then along came anakin with his angst and dropped a plot into my lap. blame him. 
> 
> some deleted scenes/lines:
> 
> The war doesn't just end because Sidious dies. that would be nice, but unfortunately the Separatists aren't quite that docile.  
> "How'd you get Ahsoka into armor?" Anakin asks him. Obi-Wan smiles.  
> "She conceded on the matter of once Yoda got Plo involved." he answers. It's white, with blue stripes, and the metal underneath has glowing jaig eyes of the same shade cut into it. 
> 
> "Kriff the Republic," Ahsoka says when he walks in the door. "Imma join the Separatists. I hear their droids have a union." Rex shrugs.  
> "Let's do it."
> 
> "Well, my mother; she has a prosthetic leg, but medicine in this field is pretty humanocentric, so she couldn't get bacta treatments for synth skin until a few years ago. She hasn't, because she doesn't want to now, but my brother became a researcher mostly because of that." Barriss says, looking down to where her hand is clasped in Ahsoka's.


End file.
